Title: High Adventure
Author: Ritchie Henman
Publisher: Pottersfield Press
Genre: True Story, Autobiography, Music
Rating: 5/5 stars

High Adventure is certainly a high adventure. This book is the account of an artist’s journey, his life and his musical career. I was intrigued to find out that this was a true story, and that this was essentially an autobiography of the author himself. If you’re going to be writing about your life, I think this is certainly the way to do it. I’ve never really read an autobiography before, and honestly, I’m not sure if this even counts as an autobiography because it’s just so entertaining and fun to read. There is a lot of “telling” in this story, and for a book it has a lot of “telling” vs. “showing”. I’m not sure what this book is supposed to be, but I think it could have been better if it was written from a more novel perspective? Since everything in Ritchie Henman’s life was incredibly story-like, it would have been cool if it were written like a novel. That’s just a personal thing though, and I understand that not everyone who writes a book has this passion for writing and devotes a lot of time into studying craft, overthinking the best ways to make a hook for your story, (not that the author of this book didn’t do any of that). Sometimes people write books because they simply have a story to share, and that’s what I believe this book is. An author sharing their story with the world.

When I took into account that these are all based on true events, and that the author of this book is telling his story, I started to have a better understanding of this book. It was very interesting to see what Canada’s rock and roll scene was like, and this was so interesting to read. So the band is called April Wine, and since I’m only a 16year old girl, naturally I’ve never heard of them. So, why did I pick up this book? I like rock and roll, and I saw this and I thought this book would be an interesting story of all of it. And so it is. When reading this, I put together a playlist with most (not quite all) of the songs that were mentioned in this book. The songs really added to this book being an experience. I loved that I got the motivation to listen to songs that I wouldn’t usually listen to, and that all of this was very new to me. As someone who doesn’t know much about music, I liked learning about the process and what it’s like the for drummer due to this book being from the drummer’s point of view. I learned that musicians need to be flexible, that band members change and improvising and being available to others is a key factor in success.

Overall, I really liked this book. I liked what I learned about rock n roll, and what it’s like to start a band. I liked learning about April Wine, which is a band that I had never heard of before, and I liked following along with their story. It was all very nice, and I would definitely recommend it to any rock n roll fans, or music lovers, or aspiring musicians! I feel like this book really gives a glimpse into all of that, and that it’s a really good read in general! I hope you check this book out!

Maybe you’re like me and you’ve never heard of April Wine before either, so here’s the April Wine Wiki Page for some additional reading :]

This book also features many songs! I created a playlist featuring a lot of them on both YouTube Music and Spotify!

High Adventure Spotify playlist
High Adventure YouTube Music Playlist

Of course there’s also the April Wine discography, so go listen to that also.
April Wine Discography YouTube Music
April Wine Discography Spotify

So yeah, that’s all I have for today! Creating the playlists and creating this book review was all very fun and I really loved it! I would definitely recommend High Adventure by Ritchie Henman, and if you’re interested in it, check out my playlists as well!

Thanks so much for reading this book review, and I will see you for another one very soon…